How to use chess books properly

I have 2 chess books which I am reading at the moment, but I am not sure how to use them appropriately in order to retrieve the most knowledge from them. I am reading My System by Aron Nimzowitsch and The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman. At the moment, I am just reading what they are saying, trying to follow the games in my head but I am not sure many of the ideas are sticking. Help please!

The ideas will begin to stick once you have the opportunity to see the positional patterns unfold themselves in your own games.  In other words, I don't think you will maximize your benefit from reading by simply trying to remember the ideas demonstrated in the game examples provided in the books.

As you play your own games, make it your first goal simply to recognize any of the positional patterns you have read about.  If you can think about your next move based on the priniciples of the books, that is even better.  However, first recognize the patterns.  After the recognition becomes automatic, then the intuition for how to play the position soundly will develop through your knowledge of the game examples in the books.

Get a chess set to work with these, especially Nimzo's book. Something where you can see the pieces in 3D, watch them move from square to square, and see in 3D what's going on. Just one person's view.

why bother with 3D? chess is a purely 2D game. i think you can do just as well with a laptop set up with an analysis board (even better as it allows you to quickly backtrack moves, or reset a position).

I have to second getting out an actual board - While an analysis board on your computer will work fine, I find it easier to absorb if you're looking at a chess set in real life (But maybe that's just me)

Amateur's Mind and My System at the same time? That's like giving a child "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Moby Dick" at the same time to read.

Would be nice if chess books were in electronic format with an analysis board ready to go.

Unless you play at a club or in tournaments...

I agree

It's not that bad...  The first half of "My System" isn't advanced.  Also Silman's Amateur's Mind isn't as basic as the title may suggest, an amateur is anything below pro level after all.

 +1

Incidentally, I am also going through Amateur's Mind, and I chose to set up my chess board and go through the moves in analog.  I actually enjoy OTB more, and it gets me away from the computer screen for a while.

even if you play on in 3 dimensional space, with 3 dimensional pieces, the game itself is purely 2 dimensional. it is moving pieces around a plane. whether they are 3 dimensional or not, the game itself is strictly 2D.

Even club and tournament players are still contrained to playing the game on a plane. All that changes is perspective.

I guess it comes down to what you are used to.

Just wait a couple years til after all the libraries are gone and guinea pigs rule the world. We'll have no need for paper literature and everyone will read books using their guineaPAD

you wrote this comment 6 years ago and your rating is still trash. what gives?